Thursday, April 5, 2012

Woman, 80, Lands Plane As Pilot Husband Collapses

If you need motivation this long weekend, this should be it.

An eighteen years of age (strike that, eighty-year-old) woman in the US safely landed a twin-engine plane after her pilot husband collapsed at the cockpit. According to the report, she has no previous flying experience. It is amazing what human can do in times of difficulties.

So, if you are 18 and not 80, and thinks that you are up against all odds in your life, and you feel hopeless, demotivated, you have gone through nothing. Take cue from what Helen Collins did in her first flying experience. You are never too old to learn new things and you definitely are going to gain a lot from being positive!

(Reuters) - An 80-year-old woman with no flying experience took over the controls after her pilot husband's fatal collapse, landing their twin-engine plane as it was running out of gas, the airport manager in Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin, said on Tuesday.

"She was remarkable on the radio," Keith Kasbohm of the Door County Cherryland Airport said of Monday's incident. "She kept her composure and sounded like she had been a pilot for years. She knew what to do when they told her 'flaps down, increase the throttle, increase the trim.' She was doing it well."

Helen Collins and her husband, John, were both taken to the hospital. He was pronounced dead, while she was held for observation, Kasbohm said.

The couple had flown their twin-engine Cessna from Georgia to their home in Sturgeon Bay, in northeast Wisconsin, before the pilot was stricken. Helen Collins took the controls and radioed the airport and was told to circle while a local pilot was called for help. The pilot took off in his own plane to guide her down, Kasbohm said.